


I'll Be Right Here

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Category: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after E.T. went home, Elliot still remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Be Right Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miriad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miriad/gifts).



Even now, years after the fact, there are those who manage to find him. Students, conspiracy theorists, urban legend hobbyists who think they’re on the cusp of enlightening the rest of the world – Elliot’s seen pretty much all of them. For the most part they’re harmless, easy to fend off or distract. Elliot got to watch Mom do it those early years – the first time freaked her the hell out, especially because they’d just moved and thought they’d left all the noise behind, but you can’t say that Mom doesn’t land on her feet swinging.

Nowadays it doesn’t happen that much. It’s just rare enough that it’s a hoot when it does, kinda like finding a twenty in the laundry, or a bird in the house.

So when Alice, who is parked in the window nook with her books, says, “Uncle Elliot, there’s someone outside the house,” his first reaction isn’t of panic.

“Do they look suspicious?” Elliot asks.

There’s a pause while Alice squints outside. “Yes,” she declares.

Elliot turns off the stove and wipes his hands on a dishcloth, while Alice’s starts a descriptive commentary on the person outside. According to her, it’s probably a guy but maybe not because he’s got a funny hat like that funny bearded guy on TV, but his jacket’s way too small so maybe it’s a skinny guy.

Elliot grabs his phone and jacket on his way to the door. “Watch Bobby for me, okay?”

“I _know_ ,” Alice says.

The visitor outside, the stranger, is just a kid. He can’t be much older than some of the students Elliot has had, back when he was still teaching, and this one is similarly unnerved when Elliot approaches with a smile.

“Hi,” Elliot says. “Can I help you?”

“What, _no_ ,” the guy says quickly. “No, ‘course not, I’m just passing through.”

“Oh, that’s interesting.” Elliot stops at the edge of the fence – it’s not picket, but it might as well be, and slowly stretches his arms as one does when getting fresh air. “Where are you passing through to?”

“Oh, just, just, through.” The kid licks his lips, a phone clutched in one hand like a lifeline. “On my way to a party. Big party. Big.”

“Cool.” The street is busy, the suburb alive with evening activity and neighborly gawking over each other’s decorations. “I’m too old for parties, I guess.”

“No way, man, you’re never too old. Never too old to, uh, to see interesting things. To _see_ things. We all wanna see things, yeah?”

“Yeah, guess so.”

“You know.” There’s a pause while the kid steels himself and then he darts in close for his heroic moment. He whispers, a little frantically, “Why didn’t they come back?”

“Who?”

“You know.” The kid’s voice takes on that edge of desperation Elliot knows well. “They should’ve come back, why didn’t they come back? Did we do something wrong?”

“You tell me, buddy.” Elliot waves at Mrs. Collins two doors over who is adjusting her house decorations. Mrs. Collins frowns a little at the visitor, but Elliot subtly makes a face that has Mrs. Collins immediately nodding with sympathy. “Look, I gotta go, but I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“They should—” The kid jumps when a hand slams on his shoulder.

“Evening,” says Agent Francine Toth, who is just Francine when she’s in her civilian clothes, as she is right now. “Let’s go for a walk, huh, buddy?”

Elliot leans on the fence, watching as Francine walks the kid over to her car where her partner is waiting. They almost look like parents dragging their wayward kid out of trouble, which should make it pretty easy to spin a story on this with the neighbors. The tricks of the trade of being government agents watching over potential leaks, Elliot figures.

After depositing the kid, Francine jogs back up to Elliot, who says, “That was fast. Am I on surveillance today?”

“Why, do you feel like you are?”

“There’s that sense of humor I love you guys for,” Elliot says. “But seriously, this isn’t cool, okay? This is my sister’s house. I don’t care if they come to me, but my niece and nephew live here.”

Francine nods. “We know, we apologize. This is one time event, we promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Want to come in for hot cocoa? Fresh batch, still on the stove.”

Francine glances over at her partner still in the car – some new guy, almost as young as the kid currently in the back seat – and then back to Elliot. “I’d love some.”

 

* * *

 

Inside the house, Alice has taken up her new station next to Bobby’s pen. Bobby isn’t paying her much attention, as he’s too busy having the time of his life drooling and kicking in the air.

“Alice, this is Francine,” Elliot says. “Francine, this is Alice and that little guy is Bobby.”

“You scared him away,” Alice says to Francine. It sounds like she’s filing that information away for later use. “Are you here for the hot chocolate?”

“Yes, I am,” Francine says.

“It’s good hot chocolate,” Alice admits.

Having government agents on speed dial is really the least of the oddities in Elliot’s life. There’s been quite a few different guys over the years, and they’re mostly decent folk as far as Elliot can see. They’re just out to do their jobs, though it varies on whether they think this is a job worth doing (Elliot personally doesn’t think it is, but what does he know, he’s just a historical extra-terrestrial first contact touch point). Elliot’s never asked if there’s a list of other people like him out there, if Greg and Tyler and Steve are on that same list, if the government has some bigger picture in play that Elliot is just one tiny data point of.

Maybe Elliot’s disinterest in asking questions is why he keeps getting the nice agents. Friendly agents, like Francine, who’s only been around for a few years and has decent taste in food.

“So am I on surveillance or not?” Elliot asks, once he has successfully delivered the promised hot cocoa. “Haven’t heard anything from you guys in months.”

“It’s just a little noisy on the vine,” Francine says. “Nothing to worry about, it’s all the usual, just… more of it. Especially with the anniversary coming up and all.”

“Anniversary?”

Francine gives him a look. “Seriously?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Hey, sorry for hanging around to make sure you’re not riding your bike off a cliff any time soon.”

“That was one time, I had my helmet on, and you can’t even prove that I meant to do it for real,” Elliot says. “And don’t let Gert hear you say that, she’s got a mean right hook.”

Francine grins. “So I’ve heard.”

This should be weird, Elliot knows. It’s Alice’s suspicious squint from the other side of the room that reminds him of this. That said, it’s hard to be unsettled by the presence of an agent in the house when Elliot’s already suffered the trauma of an agent dating his Mom. It didn’t work out, which Elliot still feels guilty for being relieved about. Sharing a cup of cocoa is small beans, really, despite the fact that they must have a casefile of him and his family back at their headquarters or whatever it is they call it.

“You better take some for the new guy,” Elliot says. “You breaking him in or something?”

“Part of the routine,” Francine replies with a soft chuckle. “But that’s nice of you, thank you. We have other stops to make.”

“Heading for a party?”

Francine inclines her head. “Something like that. Say hi to your sister for me, yeah?”

 

* * *

 

Alice insists on staying up to wait for her mother, but Elliot convinces her it’s a better idea to get plenty of sleep out of the way now, so she’ll be energized for trick-or-treating later. Alice is sold, and Elliot bounces Bobby – who’s back to being wide-awake and squirmy – on his hip while he waits for Alice to finish brushing her teeth and get ready for bed.

As soon as Alice climbs under her covers, she peers up at Elliot accusingly. “You won’t get to see my Halloween costume.”

“Well, someone’s got to stay with Grandma Mary, right?” Elliot says. “Who’s going to protect all the candy in her house?”

“That’s true.” Alice waves at the night light, which Elliot dutifully turns on. “Uncle Elliot?”

“Yes?”

“Are you a spy?”

“Yes.”

Alice pouts, and keeps on pouting while Elliot tucks her blanket around her. “Are you lying?”

“Only sometimes,” Elliot says.

“This wasn’t the first time, I think.” Alice looks at Bobby suspiciously, as though her baby brother might be listening in to their state secrets, and then whispers, “Are you really _really_ a spy?”

For a moment, Elliot imagines that he really is a spy, that he’s part of the network of agents that he meets on and off every couple of months instead of being merely another name in a probable database of names the government keeps. Elliot imagines that when he meets up with these agents, they actually tell him what’s going out there, instead of merely showing him photos or numbers or incident reports, and ask him if they _sound familiar_ or if he _can make sense of this_.

They never tell him what the info is for, or what happens after, or if they’ve found anything out there in the big black interstellar sea of space. Data points don’t get that kind of privilege, and Elliot knows he should be content with the supplementary income, as haphazard as it is. Maybe if he were a spy he would know more. And get better benefits.

“No, I’m not,” Elliot says. “The truth is, spies come to me to ask for help.”

Alice’s reaction is sublime.

 

* * *

 

Gert isn’t in the best mood when she gets home, and once she’s closed the front door her first action is to open her arms for Bobby. Elliot gladly passes his nephew over and Gert holds him close, sighing, and then smiles.

“What did I miss?” she says.

“Was the date that bad?” Elliot asks.

“You know better than to ask.” Gert bounces Bobby a little, and then perks up when she smells the cocoa Elliot had left for her. “Ah, now I remember why you’re the best babysitter in the world. Gimme.”

Apparently her date was crummy enough that Gert can’t muster much indignation when Elliot tells her about the visitor. She sighs, rolls her eyes, and snorts a little when Elliot tells her about Francine and her new partner dropping by seemingly out of the blue (“you’d think they have better things to do,” she says), but mostly just seems resigned.

“I guess I can tell the neighbors to watch out for other cheeseballs,” Gert says.

“He probably followed me from my apartment,” Elliot says. “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.”

“What, just ‘cause all the interesting things happen to you?” Gert grins and shifts Bobby against her shoulder. “Remember that guy who showed up while we were camping? Mom got so pissed.”

“Yeah…” Elliot trails off. “I shouldn’t tell her about this one. Don’t want her to get worried.”

Gert rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay. Does that mean you’re not staying the night?”

“Hell no, I think our uniform buddies have me under watch,” Elliot says. “Let me take the whole circus on out of here.”

“See, if I were Mom, at this point I’d say something gentle but needling about how the only people you seem to interact with regularly are these government people you don’t even know for sure what they do. You’d protest that you’ve heard this a hundred times over, and insists that that’s _so not true_ , Mom, and then—”

“And then I’d try to distract her with news about Mike.” Elliot narrows his eyes at Gert’s grin. “It’s _not_ true, though.”

“Better than talking at trees.”

“You can’t prove anything.”

“Don’t worry, you’re still the best babysitter in the world.” Gert laughs at his expression and draws him into a one-armed hug, Bobby balanced carefully between them.

Elliot lingers there a moment longer, taking in the smells of baby and chocolate and Gert’s perfume. Gert’s teasing is comfortable, in the way that a familiar habit is comfortable, because this is, as Francine said, almost the _anniversary._

“Say hi to Mom for me, okay?” Gert says.

“Of course.”

 

* * *

 

Elliot’s neighbors are feeling festive this year, which means that his apartment door isn’t the only one along the hallway making an effort. Fake cobwebs and decals add color to his usual walk home, though Elliot thinks his door looks the best. He has a huge blobby finger painting Alice and Bobby worked on together, with vampire bats and spiders and a creature from the black lagoon thanks to that one time Elliot let Alice secretly join him for a classic creature marathon, Gert’s reaction afterward totally worth it.

The inside of his apartment is as it always is, cluttered but clean, with everything somewhere he can find it.

It’s late, but Elliot’s computer taunts him from where it sits on his desk. _You know you want to know_ , and _you’re not going to be able to go to sleep if you don’t know_. Elliot resists only for as long as it takes to undress and brush his teeth, and then he boots said computer up.

The internet is – well, it’s a black hole. Practically everything that is everything is on it, and it’s how Elliot found out years ago that there are people who make pilgrimage every year to _that_ spot, the spot that was once _his_ spot before Mom took them away, the spot that should not be on any official record but there were too many eyes that day, that night they left, for it to be truly forgotten.

A party, the kid said. An anniversary, Francine had said. Of course Elliot knows, how can he not know? Every Halloween he remembers, and every Halloween he tries to not look too closely at costumers under two feet tall (aside from the creeper connotations of that).

Elliot pulls up a website on his bookmarks. A lot of the older ones haven’t been updated in ages –bigger, newer, shinier things inevitably pull people’s attention away – but this one does. The pilgrimage is on this year, campers are going out there to watch the stars and hope. Earlier comments have various people wondering what’s happened to the kids that were supposedly involved with the first contact incident, if the government silenced them, if the aliens took them away, if the aliens were scared off.

It all sounds so clandestine laid out like this on the internet, so _mysterious._

Elliot looks around his apartment. The pile of newly-bought Halloween candy is packed in a corner, ready to be lugged onto his bike for the trip out to Mom’s tomorrow (they taste better here, don’t ask him why, they just do). Postcards from Mike line the top of his bookshelves in between other drawings from Alice and Bobby, a few framed botanical samples hang from the walls.

This is the diorama of Elliot’s life.

The people on these forums would probably be disappointed to see this, to see him. That’s okay. Whatever they imagine would inevitably be more spectacular than reality. They’d have questions, too – questions that Elliot can’t and isn’t interested in answering. He was just some dumb kid who was at the right place at the right time, and although there were a couple of years afterward where things weren’t so good and Elliot hated those few days in autumn more than he was grateful for having them at all, now it’s just background noise, padded over with the decades that followed.

Yes, there is so much they don’t know. Yes, there is a place in Elliot that will always keep the cold shock of knowing that they’re not alone in the universe. The memory’s changed in weight over the years, slathering new context of having grown up onto his memories – wonder and terror and hope, relief at not being alone, fear of how vast loneliness can be.

That’s not all of it, though. It’s like, sometimes Elliot thinks he should write a book. One of Francine’s predecessors (not the one who’d tried to date Mom) almost convinced him to do it, but he’d been interested in the things that hadn’t mattered to Elliot. Everyone’s interested in the big things. At ten years old, Elliot’s world had been much smaller, much simpler. Elliot didn’t care about the big things; Elliot still doesn’t care about the big things. Everyone would be so disappointed.

There’s nothing else worth reading on the forums – just more of the same old questions, brought up this time every year. Elliot’s time is better used going to sleep then, to rest for the long journey tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

Someone’s breaking into the apartment.

Elliot jolts awake – someone’s _broken_ into the apartment, because the clatter that woke him up is definitely happening on this side of the door. There’s a baseball bat lying on the floor but it’s two feet away from the bed and that’s two whole feet Elliot has to get over an intruder he can’t see at all.

Another rustle, and this time Elliot’s able to make it out as the noise of plastic, followed by the shuffle of something heavy on the floor. What’s the point of having secret government agents spying on you if they don’t prevent this kind of bullshit, really?

From the darkness comes a voice: “ _El_ -liot.”

Elliot stares into the dark, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He spots the source of movement, and tracks it until the moonlight from the window becomes useful in revealing his intruder.

Here is Elliot’s second interloper of the night, and this one has a face only a kid could love.

Elliot closes his eyes. This dream’s a familiar one, and an unpleasant one to wake up from even if he enjoys it while it’s happening. Elliot keeps eyes shut and breathes, and someone else breathes with him, though they seem to have a tougher job of it, wheezing faintly in the quiet of the room.

“Elliot.” There’s a touch in his mind, as gentle as a finger, leaden with kindness and curiosity, and it’s so familiar that Elliot can’t breathe. “ _Elliot_.”

This isn’t possible, of course. Elliot’s too old, too grown-up, too Susan Pevensie, and there’s a party on the other side of the country where there are people with open minds and better equipment waiting for this.

Something touches his hand.

“ _Gah_!” Elliot yelps and flails, sheets tangling around his limbs, and there’s a hideous squawk from his visitor that makes Elliot want to cry. Maybe Elliot _is_ crying, it’s hard to tell. There’s another clatter when something falls from his side table, and that’s really too much, Elliot has to sit up and open his eyes and focus.

E.T. is standing next to his bed, peering up at him hopefully. He’s holding one of Elliot’s framed photographs, the one from two or three Christmases ago.

“No,” Elliot says.

E.T.’s head sways slowly. He understands the word, though not why Elliot had said it.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Elliot says. “You – _why are you here_?”

“Elliot.” E.T. shows him the framed photograph. A question – or, at least, the essence of a question – filters into Elliot’s mind. He wants to know about Gertie and Mike, how they’re doing, if they’re okay. It takes Elliot to moment to realize that E.T. is _excited_ , he’s delighted to be here and he’s waiting for Elliot to be excited with him.

“Where have you _been_?” Elliot hisses.

E.T. drops his gaze contritely, mental whispers brushing over Elliot’s mind. He’d wanted to come back, just as much as he’d wanted Elliot to come with him. But governments are governments and red tape is red tape, and E.T.’s crew has had their own to deal with.

“Punished?” Elliot says. “Your whole crew was… punished? Forbidden from coming back?” E.T. whines a little. “You guys weren’t supposed to be here at all. I _knew_ it! So what do you have to say for yourself, huh?”

E.T. chirrups.

Something’s changed. Not the obvious things – Elliot’s not ten, E.T. is not however old he was before, etc. Something in the overall landscape has changed, and it has E.T.’s eyes bright and his thoughts thrumming with excitement.

“Why are you here?” Elliot asks quietly.

“Ready,” E.T. says. He points at Elliot, then gestures at the map he has on the wall. “Ready.”

“I’m ready? You’re ready?” Then Elliot gets it, and everything is terribly small and terribly big and Elliot should have learned by now that you can never go back to where things were, but he _wants_. E.T.’s expression is hopeful, and Elliot may not be ten anymore but fucking hell does it feel like he actually _is_ , and there is too much wonder in his chest that can be contained in a single person. “ _We_ are ready. For you.”

E.T. nods. Their world is ready to say hello, or to be taught how to say hello. And some genius up in the sky thought that this – thought that _they_ – would be the way to make it happen. How wacky is that?

E.T. is Elliot’s best friend, and it can never be the way it was, but that’s okay. Maybe it can be some new way, now that Elliot can ask new questions, and E.T. can answer them. His finger starts to glow in that familiar way, and he reaches for Elliot, only for Elliot to back-up sharply and hold up a hand.

“E.T.,” Elliot says, “If you’re going to teach me about interstellar travel, I’m going to have to be wide awake, and the lights need to be on.”

E.T. makes an agreeable sound, and draws back to give Elliot room.

God, he’s going to have to call Mom, and then Gertie and Mike. Maybe Steve, if Elliot still has his number somewhere. He’s going to have to figure out a way to get E.T. out of the apartment eventually – and how did even get in here, anyway? Did E.T. come alone or are there others with him? How did E.T. even find him? Is there another space ship somewhere? Can Elliot see it and rummage around E.T.’s stuff for a change?

“Yes,” E.T. says, and Elliot tries not squawk. E.T. gurgles at him hopefully, and starts poking at Elliot’s things curiously because hey, an alien’s got to do what an alien’s got to do.

Elliot needs to make some coffee, maybe let E.T. try the coffee, and let it all sink in. Francine and her crew are going to freak. Alice is going to freak, too, but in a better way, maybe. Is it natural to be vibrating with excitement?

First things first, though. Elliot slides out of the bed, goes down to the floor, and takes E.T. into a hug.

E.T.’s fingers are wrinkly, gentle things where they rest on his shoulders. “Thank you, Elliot.”

Elliot pulls back. “Did you eat all my Halloween candy?”

E.T. widens his eyes innocently.

Elliot sighs. “This is going to be interesting.”


End file.
